Genuine question for those who think drying washing outside makes people look poor - outside clotheslines here are as standard a part of the home as the mailbox. I've always lived in nice areas and most people hang their washing out to dry. Most people's clotheslines can't be seen from the street, but if for some reason some could be, would you consider those homeowners to be poor?

I've just returned from Asia and it was commonplace to see washing hanging out of windows/balconies, but as housing space there is severely restricted and most live in flats, I just assumed it was standard for people to dry their stuff that way. I'm sure some of those people were poor, but I'd think it a bit judgmental to assume they all were based solely on their clothes drying habits.

Bit OT: When I was pregnant with DS1 my elderly neighbour said she couldn't wait to see my line full of nice clean nappies blowing in the wind.

I don't buy into that attitude but I think it started after WWII. As the military came back, got married, and bought new track houses in new suburbs with all the modern conveniences during the post war boom a line was drawn in peoples minds.

Lack of modern conveniences = pre war depression era poverty

Modern conveniences = boom times, escaping poverty boom times.

Plus, New is Better! Right?

Like formula was better for babies and only poor mothers who didn't care breastfed.

A great-aunt was one of the first people in the area to get a freezer. Every day she cooked a meal and put it in the freezer, and then thawed the meal she'd made the day before. They said that it was "Better than fresh". That phrase became a family joke.

Another benefit of drying on portable folding racks - My area has a high wind advisory starting in about 1/2 hour. The wind is starting to pick up now. My racks of laundry are on the back deck but they are very close to the wall so the bulk of the wind doesn't hit them. The wind won't blow them over. When they are dry I'll bring the whole racks in and take down the clothing indoors, out of the wind. I won't have to chase escaping socks all over the yard.

I really, really wish I had a clothesline. My parents had one, and I grew up using it. I miss the smell of line-dried clothes! When DH and I first met, I was living in an apartment and doing laundry at a laundromat, but once in a while if I went home for a weekend, I'd do my laundry there, and when I came back, my clothes all had that fresh-air smell.

A few years later, after we had been married for quite some time, my father had been up visiting and Dh said to me later "He smelled like you used to when we first met!" I think that was when it first dawned on me about that smell - and how much I really do miss it. Sometimes, in the springtime when the weather first starts to get warm enough to spend time outside, but it's still a bit breezy, I notice clothes will pick up that smell after a few hours spent outside. But of course then they aren't clean.

Most of my clothes I don't put in the dryer because I don't want them to shrink. I will drape pants over kitchen or dining room chairs to dry, and shirts and sweaters I hang in the closet in the laundry room.

Y'll should know that I have this thread to thank for having a working dryer at home. The drier at home is really old and stopped heating about a year ago, which didn't really bother me. Then it stopped tumbling, which did bother me. Then DH figured out that we held the button down long enough it would eventually click into gear and tumble. Then the time to hold the button down got so long that we propped up things on the dryer that held down the button while we did other stuff and waited for the tone to change, then we would remove the stuff from the button. Then that didn't even work. This spring our next house will be ready, and it has gas and our current house doesn't. Thanks to all the brain time spent thinking about drying clothes while reading this thread, I got fed up and said to husband, "Let's buy a gas dryer. Install it at the farm house, and when you go out to work on it, you can take a few loads to dry." We did that. (I haven't even seen the new dryer yet) But, I swear, that the dryer in this house learned that we didn't really NEED it, and it started to tumble again. Yeah!

I am in the US, in Florida. There may be a few weeks in the winter where the humidity is low enough to dry laundry outside, but we have no dry season. I live in a townhouse, with no yard and our complex has rules about hanging anything to dry where it is visible to neighbors.

Several posts in this thread mention clothing being damaged by clothes dryers. How much of a problem is this, really? A lot of my clothes are really old (10 years and more). They are always dried in the machine and they are not damaged. I always use the lowest reasonable setting and dry some things inside out (if the care label recommends it) and never have a problem. On the other hand, I did have clothes damaged by clothes pins and low flying birds (who'd been indulging in red berries) when I hung clothes outside.

Several posts in this thread mention clothing being damaged by clothes dryers. How much of a problem is this, really? A lot of my clothes are really old (10 years and more). They are always dried in the machine and they are not damaged. I always use the lowest reasonable setting and dry some things inside out (if the care label recommends it) and never have a problem. On the other hand, I did have clothes damaged by clothes pins and low flying birds (who'd been indulging in red berries) when I hung clothes outside.

I was wondering the same but didn't want to appear ignorant, so I didn't post the question. I have a LOT of shirts from high school, some I didn't wear for 2-4 years of being to large for them but since I did the baggy style thing in HS those are in the minority. I also have 3 pairs of pants I recently began wearing again after 2 year hiatus, again due to weight gain, but they were worn pretty solidly over the 6-7 years (minus a year and a half or so around DD's time) before that. One pair of jeans I recently noticed is becoming very thin in the butt, and I saw a mend in my green sweater today has come lose, but otherwise most of my stuff is still pretty wearable if I still want to wear it. I tend to use the dryer 3/4 of the year, or more if I want to avoid picking out cottonwood seeds and shaking out dust.

I just figured I've been very lucky in my clothing or something. Socks, now, I'd like to replace those annually.

Several posts in this thread mention clothing being damaged by clothes dryers. How much of a problem is this, really? A lot of my clothes are really old (10 years and more). They are always dried in the machine and they are not damaged. I always use the lowest reasonable setting and dry some things inside out (if the care label recommends it) and never have a problem. On the other hand, I did have clothes damaged by clothes pins and low flying birds (who'd been indulging in red berries) when I hung clothes outside.

I spent years and years dying my stuff in a dryer. I never had any problems with shrinkage or clothes being ruined in any way.

Dryers cost electricity and need to have the lint filter cleaned all the time. A clothesline just wants winding down, pegging out, and taking in a few hours later. Much simpler and cheaper.

I'll agree with cheaper but no way would I agree with simpler. In order to line dry my laundry, I'd have to unload the washer into my basket, head out through the garage then go through the side alley to behind my house, up onto my deck to a regular type line or get the compact one out of my shed and put it in the ground, hang each piece up one by one, using clothespins, then repeat the process in reverse once everything was dry. It is MUCH simpler just to throw the load in the dryer and crank it on.

Logged

After cleaning out my Dad's house, I have this advice: If you haven't used it in a year, throw it out!!!!.

Several posts in this thread mention clothing being damaged by clothes dryers. How much of a problem is this, really? A lot of my clothes are really old (10 years and more). They are always dried in the machine and they are not damaged. I always use the lowest reasonable setting and dry some things inside out (if the care label recommends it) and never have a problem. On the other hand, I did have clothes damaged by clothes pins and low flying birds (who'd been indulging in red berries) when I hung clothes outside.

The damage that I see most commonly doesn't necessarily break the clothes, in the sense that it doesn't make seams rip or holes appear or anything. But the heat makes many clothes shrink and can make the colors fade faster. It can also sometimes make fabrics less crisp over time and add a bit of extra wear and tear to the hems and finished edges.

So for things like t-shirts or jeans, the dryer isn't going to do anything to them that makes a difference in their wearability, unless they shrink in a way that makes them not fit. But for things like the button down shirts I wear to work, they often wouldn't fit me properly if they shrank, and having the fabric fade and get less crisp makes them look noticeably worn after awhile. If I hang them up to dry, they look like new(ish) shirts for much longer, and I don't have to worry about them getting incrementally shorter every time I wash them.

Basically, whether or not I dry clothing depends upon if I care about it shrinking, fading, or softening. I mostly dry my pants because I don't particularly have a problem with any of those things happening. I never dry the yoga pants I sleep in because they are cotton and just barely long enough now. If I dried them, they'd shrink at least an inch or two and be way too short to be comfortable. But I do dry the cotton yoga pants I wear to exercise, because they're still an inch or so longer than strictly necessary after multiple trips through the dryer.

As well as using a clothes dryer a lot over the years, I've also pegged stuff outside and have never had a problem there either. Our dryer died 2 years ago and we just never got around to replacing it so since then I've had no choice but to line dry.

As doing laundry is not my favourite passtime, I do miss the convenience of being able to throw it all in the dryer, especially later in the day/early evening if something is needed for the next day. In those cases, I just cross my fingers and hope whatever it is manages to dry inside overnight.

In a nutshell, I've never had any issues with whatever method I've used to dry clothes, but I love the convenience of a dryer.

In order to line dry my laundry, I'd have to unload the washer into my basket, head out through the garage then go through the side alley to behind my house, up onto my deck to a regular type line or get the compact one out of my shed and put it in the ground, hang each piece up one by one, using clothespins, then repeat the process in reverse once everything was dry. It is MUCH simpler just to throw the load in the dryer and crank it on.

This is what I've found is a major difference between US and Australian/NZ houses. Here, 99% of houses are designed with the laundry opening out onto the garden with the clothesline nearby. I think it takes about 4 steps for me to get from my washing machine to the clothesline. If I had to muck around traipsing through half the house to get outside, I'd probably stick exclusively to the dryer too.

The actual hanging method is the same everywhere though, so that really has nothing to do with the house design.

Western Washington in the United States.....if I tried to exclusively line dry outside I would probably only have dry clothing 1 month out of 12. That said I live in the suburbs in an old neighborhood (built in the mid 70's) that predates HOA's in our area. So no worry having a clothesline if I want one, plus we tend to be fairly environmentally conscience around here and city's wouldn't get away with an outright ban. Most often I just drape bathroom rugs and shower curtains out on sunny days to air out.

However I do keep an extra shower rod in our larger bathroom running the length of the tub but hanging well above head height. I hang swim wear, delicates, and fabric that I'm pre-treating for sewing. Stuff can be dripping wet and any water just drains down the tub. I have a tiny utility room that is home to washer, dryer, coat room, toilet, utility sink, water heater, kitty box, boot bin, etc. In my home that would be the logical place for a drying rack, but I don't particularly want kitty litter dust kicked up all over my clean stuff. My hubby and I are finishing some additional closet space and I'm toying with the idea of an extendable drying rack for other stuff.